By the early 1970's, credit cards had come to the marketplace as a form of convenient, cashless payment. Since that time, the physical form factor of credit cards has changed very little.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,484,940 and 7,080,783, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by this reference, describe data storage cards which have optical and magnetic data storage regions, and may be engaged both by a drive mechanism of a magnetic stripe reader and a drive mechanism of an optical data reader.